Back In The Game

I made a trip tonight to Rascal's Casino just south of Seattle. I'd never been there before but gave it a shot since the new poker room manager used to run Treasure Casino in Renton. He's a goofy fellow, but he runs a tight tournament, and he offers the best low-buyin structure aroundL $5k chips instead of the normal $3k other places offer, and a better blind structure that allows for a little more post flop play.

I got there pretty early, about 45 minutes to spare, to avoid being an alternate. I wasn't sure how popular this place was, but I remember the first time I tried Treasure Casino with Cayne & Joshua, and I was something like the 14th alternate even with a half\hour before the first hand. This time I was definitely early enough, which was a good thing: the casino only has 3 tables for poker. The good news is that they end any cash games to insure that the tournament can reach capacity.

A side note about the casino; although it's in a somewhat sketchy location, the casino is pretty top notch. Brightly lit, friendly staff, decent food...and of course, PAI GOW! I didn't partake in any PAI GOW, because what fun is that all by yourself? Anyways, between the tournament structure and the quality of the casino, I definitely recommend this to any Seattle area players looking for a decent place for tournament play. MHG? Zeem, perhaps? Maybe one of these days I'll even manage to meet The Doc.

So a quick roundup of the tournament. I really only played 4 hands:

1. A9 on the button. Raised after MP limped, bet A-high flop, win pot.
2. 77 in MP. Raise after UTG limps (same guy as last time). Folds and he reraises about 4x. Later he claims to be bluffing when I ask if he had Aces there. It was a rhetorical question.
(Note: He later confirms his donkeyness when he calls in MP after 5x UTG raise, then still calls after BB shove & UTG call..for his entire stack. His hand? QT sooted. Up against TT and JJ, he finds a Q on the flop to triple up. Wheeeeeee.)
3. AQ sooted. Shove in BB after UTG raise; he was a pretty passive player and I figured there was a good chance I was either ahead or racing.
4. KK. Raise UTG, UTG+2 puts me allin. I know he probably has AA but AK or QQ are slight possibilities. Folding essentially leaves me with M of just over 6, but soon to be just over 3 as blinds are going up around the time I hit the button. I call and he shows the AA. IGHN.

Overall, the tournament is very weak: lots of preflop limping or min-raising, a couple of draw chasers, mostly tight postflop with fairly predictable players. On Thursdays, they have a double-stack tournament with even more intermediate blinds; I'm really looking forward to that.

......

So the meaning behind the post is two-fold. Not only was I back in another live game, but I'm back online as well. Even I knew it wouldn't last long, despite my last post.

After that last post, I had a measly bankroll of $7. I tried my hand at some $2 SNGs and busted out of each one, leaving me with $1 and some change, but not even enough for a $1 SNG. I had no intent of reloading, even for $50, so I figured I'd try to cash out my FTP points and pick up some shwag from the FTP store. Only problem is that I didn't have enough points for anything but random shit items. Instead, I found that FTP runs token SNGs for 1800 points, with the top 3 getting a $26 token.

7 tries, 4 tokens. I take a shot at a 90-seat KO and take 6th for $108. I take another shot, this time at a 5-table SNG, and finish 2nd for $270. Throw in a couple random SNG scores, and I end up trading in about 13,000 FTP points for a nice little bankroll of just under $500.

So yeah, I'm back.